Researchers have known for years that hosting large sporting events like the Olympics always costs more than expected and always yields less revenue and useful long-term infrastructure than estimated. Now voters and politicians in democratically elected countries are starting to realize the same thing.

Potential host cities are dropping out of the bidding process for the 2022 Winter Olympics like crazy.

"Public expenditures on sports infrastructure and event operations necessarily entail reductions in other government services, an expansion of government borrowing, or an increase in taxation, all of which produce a drag on the local economy. At best public expenditures on sports-related construction or operation have zero net impact on the economy as the employment benefits of the project are matched by employment losses associated with higher taxes or spending cuts elsewhere in the system."

Matheson also argues that Olympic economic impact reports often ignore the significant costs for things like security and conflate "general infrastructure" with "sports infrastructure."

The things you need to stage a two-week bobsleigh event are different than the things you need for daily life.

The most obvious representation of this is "white elephants" — costly Olympic stadiums that now sit empty. From Sarajevo to Athens to (some fear) Sochi, former host cities are full of examples of buildings that served a specific purpose for two weeks during the Olympics and then immediately fell out of use.

Countries, at least democracies, are no longer buying the economic benefit argument. As a result, we could be headed into an era where only non-democratic governments will want to host the Olympics.

After dropping out of the bidding, Stockholm's ruling party issued a statement saying they had no use for Olympic infrastructure:

"Arranging a Winter Olympics would mean a big investment in new sports facilities, for example for the bobsleigh and luge."

"There isn't any need for that type of that kind of facility after an Olympics."